Songs of the Night: What the Nightingale Sang
by theory of mice
Summary: We slip in between the throats of the alleys to hide ourselves from peacekeeper eyes. This is a luxury we can't afford in the Seam, where each crevice and shadow provides a haunt for sour hearts. The danger only heightens in the murky passages between the buildings that separate the Town and the Seam, where both fair- and dark-haired vermin creep. Gale and Katniss before the games.
1. Chapter 1: Rape

**Hello All,**

 **My vision for this is to be a series of one-shots based on the sufferings and struggles while living in District Twelve. All shots will involve Gale/Katniss somehow, and neither of the families is reaped because it makes my heart beat a little softer if I know they are together. This is my first time publicly posting my writing, so please leave LOTS of constructive criticism in the reviews. Someone already suggested that I change the title (which I have done - THANK YOU!), and if you have any specific situations or plot ideas that you'd like me to write about - tell me! I'll do my best. For now, read with me a bit.**

 **~ theory of mice**

* * *

We take our usual route among the backstreets of the town, slipping in between the throats of the alleys to hide ourselves from peacekeeper eyes. This is a luxury we can't afford in the Seam, where each crevice and shadow provides a haunt for sour hearts. The danger only heightens in the murky passages between the buildings that separate the Town and the Seam, where both fair- and dark-haired vermin creep.

Katniss' boots scrape the damp asphalt behind me. I glance back, quickly, sharply, to watch her tired gait slump in the growing night. It was a long day of trading and hunting after school. Fall is always taxing… catch the animals before they sleep for winter, trade before the prices go up, struggle to get home before dark, simper in the constant rain. By the time winter rolls around, it seems our spirits are already punctured by fall's prickly blow.

I lead the way out of the last alley and wait gently in the moonlight for Kat to catch up. Her eyes wander to mine, illuminated by the effervescent evening, and she nods once before swallowing sleepily and looking down. We walk close to the house walls, close to each other, not in comfort, but in instinct, as we pass coal-smutted alleys.

"You could have stayed with me at the Hob," I break the steady silence, "We didn't need to split up, not really. And I know Thurma cut me off a few for the salt. She likes you better."

Katniss bunches her shoulders in a shrug before cramming her hands into her leather coat pockets. "It was quicker this way, and I'd rather be home… or your home, anyway. And Thurma is just biased against men… and boys," she adds, peeking at me.

"Well, we'd have to bring in Rory to know the answer to that," I say, jostling against her with my elbow.

She laughs, but mingled with that breathy bell-sound is something not-quite-right. She hears it too and stills. We hear it again – a sharp breath, like one taken before a sob, whitens the night. Then a whimper, high and clean, slinks from the nearest alleyway. Katniss jerks forward, running towards the pained plea even as I reach out to snatch her.

"Katniss… wait! Don't be… damn!" I race after her, blind in fear and preparing myself for her rewarding screams to whoever lay in wait behind this trap. "Katniss?" The alley is dark and naïve little Catnip ventured deep.

"GALE!" The cry is only a foot in front of me, and as my eyes adjust, I see two figures crouched on the ground. A sob cuts the air.

"I didn't want him to do it! I told him not to… I didn't want… please don't leave me! Please…"

"Kat, what's going on…" but Katniss shushes me out and reaches for the figure limp against the wall.

"Move against the wall," she whispers, and as I move, a strand of moonlight pierces the scene.

It is Iggy Freysburn in a torn dress and a pool of blood leaking slowly from beneath the hem. So she is the victim; the one who ventured too deep and fell much deeper. Her eyes pool over purple bruises and ebony hair plastered against her face.

"I couldn't scream… he wouldn't let me…" she chokes and quivers in the wet, "don't leave me, he'll come back… he'll do it again, he said… PLEASE!"

She takes fists of Katniss' coat in her hands and shudders, half crazed with fear and pain.

"Shh…shhhh…" Katniss weaves her hands into Iggy's and looks at me, "You need to get my mother. She'll be waiting up for me… at home. You need to get her."

Her eyes are so serious… determined and frightened in a steely swirl, protected by her long, damp eyelashes. My heart tears at the thought of leaving her at this crime scene, alone, oblivious, unprotected. She glances at the blood, slowly slurring with the ashy rain puddles as it oozes from underneath Iggy's beaten form. Does she even know why?

"Kat…" I want to tell her and I want to shield her, and the whole time, she looks expectantly at me, waiting, "Kat, she'll bleed out by the time I fetch her."

"Can you carry her?"

I nod and crouch down, handing the strap of my game bag to Katniss before looping my arms underneath the crook of Iggy's knees. I pull her against my chest tightly as she sobs painfully and her dress drips crimson against the pavement. Katniss only stares at the scarlet puddle left behind, while I start on my way.

We get to her house after my arms begin to burn and Iggy's eyes have closed unnaturally against the star-crammed sky. Katniss is silent along the way, but she stretches her legs out so that she is always a step ahead of me so that she is in control of the situation. Because her fourteen-year-old mind cannot grasp entirely what has happened except that it is essential we reach her house; because without control, Katniss is uncontrollable.


	2. Chapter 2: Suicide

**This takes place (in my mind) around when Katniss is 14-ish. The suicidal mother in question is, of course, Mrs. Everdeen. Short and terrifying. Enjoy (actually, don't. that's wrong. read it anyway.)**

 **~ theory of mice**

* * *

I remember the night she told me. Of course, I already knew. I had seen the rivulets of tortured skin running parallel with beating veins along the forearms. No doubt Ma had, too. And yet, neither of us said anything. Neither of us inquired or offered help. Neither of us kept a vigilant eye for fresh mutilations that might indicate ongoing attempts. Katniss and I had a sort silent agreement that whatever happened… happened. If nothing else, life in the coal town taught you not to make extra of anything – extra bread and it stales, extra stew and it spoils; surplus kisses are children, bonus hours are life sentences, and pain… there's enough already.

So when she finally tells me, it comes out like a glinting, glittering knife that she's toothed and teethed and gnawed at. And though I already knew, the precision of the words nick me, in the raw detached-ness of her words and her body as one flows and the other stills. She is a clear cut piece of glass, ready to sever herself from her thoughts should she dwell too deeply. In the shudder of a hot summer draught, she loses concentration. Her eyes glaze after a brief fire. Words come.

"My mother tried to die once."

There was no silence. Instead, the noise of the houses rang-ed and banged about us. The dusk was noisy and the people brisk. Insects droned inebriated whines. Porch lights clanked.

There was a silence between us, though. The language of the body is strange in that the perfect anatomy, which is so clearly designed to speak an audible assurance, is dumb. Instead, we leave the palpable buzz between the atoms of our skins open and soothingly alive.

"There was blood," she dribbles, "Is there always blood in dying?"

"Is there death without blood?" I ask.

And with those terrible, vulnerable eyes, she looks at me. "Yes. She has been dead all this while."


	3. Chapter 3: Reaping

Brycham Northing is reaped this year. Katniss remembers him from a year above her in school, black-haired, dark-skinned, and so emaciated you could see his rib cage poke through his shirt. His siblings cry as he lurches towards the stage, three young half-sisters, not yet of reaping age, but substantial proof of their mother's second marriage after the mine collapse. Katniss thinks it funny that she can't recall seeing Brycham that day, while she waited for her own father to emerge from the hot, acrid smoke. She revisits that scene nightly, sometimes more than once, before she escapes to the cool distractions of the forest and gets lost in the shapes Gale's fingers make while tying snares.

Haymitch Abernathy rocks from his chair, brushing off the mayor's docile restraint, and holds a sea-green glass of spirits high in the air, as if to baptize the tributes with a drunken expletive before he dives head-first off the platform. Whether from nerves or malnourishment, Brycham is quick to join him on the ground and together they are a pair of fools, being fluttered over by Effie Trinket and the swarm of cameras. Katniss thinks she can hear the Capitol laughter from here.

At sixteen, she has an appreciation for the brusque conclusion of the ceremony. Before, she used to think it too brief an ordeal for such an enormous amount of worry and heartache. Now she is grateful for the peacekeepers who wrench her arms and clout her ears as they drive the hordes of children out of the square like livestock. Katniss is only grateful that they have been granted another year of fattening before their eminent butchering. Today, they will not be driven to the slaughterhouse. Today, the Capitol will satiate their sharp appetites on weaker prey and she will be left to starve in peace.

Amidst the jostling of two thousand girls rushing to their families, Katniss combs through the crowd for one small head of golden plaits, tied off pretty like a package with rosy ribbons. The search is fruitless and Katniss can feel the adrenaline escaping her in small trembles of concern for Prim's safety, until, like a streak of light slicing through thick, murky waters, she feels a warm hand on her bicep and allows herself to be dragged to the edge of the mob. She has no idea how Gale found her amongst the assembly of every other raven-haired, steely-eyed girl, but it's his last reaping and she doesn't argue when he crushes her to his chest, especially when she sees Prim and Rory waiting patiently with their mothers. At some point, she makes a sound low in her throat and Gale squeezes her hard before letting her go. They don't meet eyes because the wails of Brycham's family still echo in the square, and the celebration in their eyes is too shameful a thing to acknowledge at the moment. But they walk gratefully back to their clan and start the journey home.

Prim is skittish and prettily pale, refusing to let go of Katniss' arm or hand or waist. Gale catches Rory brushing a hand against Hazelle's. They are all seeking the closeness of family and friends after bearing witness to the swift obliteration of the Northings. It is nearly impossible to reconcile another year of survival with another's loss. Yet still, they take out the strawberries and goat cheese, and the last loaf of soft bakery bread studded with basil and walnuts, and feast in their best clothes on the living room floor. It is dusty and uncomfortably hot, but the cheese is melty and Vick toasts the bread with an intense solemnity that both surprises and dismays Gale.

The sweet syrup of the strawberries still stains their hands when the first howls shake the windowpanes. The Northings live three houses down from the Hawthornes. After the train's departure, there is nothing left to do but return to your home and close the shutters, so Brycham's family has done precisely that. Even so, his mother's wails crawl through the cracks of the sash and sill, keeping company with the cobwebs and coal smut. Despite the heat of the June evening, goosebumps raise on everyone's neck and Posy crawls into Hazelle's arms, clasping tiny hands over her ears.

It seems impossible to Katniss that one can scream for so long without breathing. Instinctively, she reaches out to Prim and clutches her shoulders, drawing her fair head under her chin and smelling the nostalgic perfume of freshly soaped skin and warm hair. When Gale spies wells of tears in Vick's lashes, he smooths his hand over the little boy's spine and says, "Sing us a song, Primmy."

Prim blushes timidly and looks up at Katniss with clear blue eyes. "Only if Katniss sings with me."

Katniss smiles graciously, small and thoughtful, "You start, little duck."

Prim's soft falsetto is hardly enough to overpower the keening of Mrs. Northing, but it provides an opportunity to concentrate on the quiet verses of her song.

 _Oh, come by the hills to a land where life is a song_ _  
_ _Sing while the birds fill the air with their joy all day long_ _  
_ _Where the trees sway in time and even the wind sings along_ _  
_ _Ah, the cares of to-morrow must wait 'til this day is done_

When Katniss joins in, it's as a counter melody, bolstering the tone and pitch. The song is common and well known, and even little Posy mumbles choruses around her thumb. By the second time through, everyone has joined, making the sorrowful clamor of the day a faint memory and the present relief tangible through the satisfying taste of lyrics on their tongues.

When the recaps are over and the youngest are in bed, the mothers creep out onto the porch steps and subject themselves to the relentless weeping of the streets. It is a penalty of sorts, yes, that they've earned through the deliverance of their offspring. Each cry is a gratifying reminder of what lies wearily within: sleeping children whom they might continue to call their own for another year. And it is a preparation, too, perhaps, of what the unknown future might hold. It is not against the odds that they will waste one summer night in the coming years shaking the shutters with their grief.

Unawares to the women, the two eldest lean against the back door, listening likewise to the torment that might have been theirs that day, that perhaps slipped _only just_ out of reach of Effie Trinket's manicured claws. Katniss has two more years, Rory five, and Prim six. By the time Posy is eighteen, Gale will be thirty-two. With a family of his own, Katniss thinks, given the mines have not slowly (or spitefully suddenly) suffocated him with their smoke and dust and darkness. If Posy survives the reapings, Gale deliberates bitterly, he will be concerned with the odds of his own children's survival, _their_ children's survival, _his and Katniss'_.

Life: it is an endless circle, never taking a breath or offering respite, one long cry of unbearable grief. In the dusk, the shadows lengthen and Mrs. Northing's bewailing persists, but in the uncertainty of their life there is one assurance that warms the breath of these mothers, lovers, friends: tonight they will have each other, tonight the grief is bearable as long as they are together, tonight they will take a breath and not let it out until morning.


End file.
